The Collectors

by David Baldacci

  Bagger picked up the glass of orange juice on the tray and drank it down in one long gulp. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, “I drink orange juice every day. You know why? It’s got a ton of calcium. I’m sixty-six, but do I look it? Hell no! Feel this muscle, Tony, go ahead and feel it.” Bagger flexed his right biceps. Tony, however, seemed paralyzed.

  Bagger feigned surprise. “Why so upset? Oh, because of the bitch going out the window? Don’t worry about that.” He looked at the man who’d done the tossing. “Hey, Mike, you aimed for the swimming pool, right, like in that James Bond movie? Which one was that again?”

  “Diamonds Are Forever, Mr. Bagger,” Mike said promptly.

  Bagger smiled. “That’s right, Diamonds Are Forever. Damn, I love that James Bond shit. That’s the one with what’s-her-name in the teeny bikini where you can see her butt crack. Stephanie Powers?”

  “Jill St. John, Mr. Bagger,” Mike corrected politely.

  “Right, right, I always get those two broads mixed up. Bitches look just alike when they ain’t got nothing on. Go figure.”

  “I didn’t quite make the pool with the lady, Mr. Bagger,” Mike admitted.

  “But you tried, Mike, you tried, that’s the important thing.” He turned back to Tony. “That’s the most important thing, right, Tony?”

  Tony was obviously too horrified to speak.

  “Besides, it’s better this way, because the two old folks downstairs? You’re not gonna believe this, they just keeled over and died when we walked in. And there’s no way a pretty little thing like that bonita bitch could’ve kept up a big place like this all by herself. I look at it as a favor what we did, don’t you, Tony?”

  Tony nodded with great difficulty.

  “Now feel my muscle. I want you to feel the strength I got in this body.”

  Not waiting for Tony to take the initiative, Bagger grabbed his hand and pulled it over to his flexed biceps. “You feel how hard that is, Tony? Do you understand how strong I am now? You got a real good sense of that?”

  Tony wailed, “Please don’t kill me, Mr. Bagger. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Bagger gave Tony’s fingers a crushing grip and let them go. “Come on, don’t do that, apologies make a man look weak. Besides, it was a great scam, really first-rate. Everybody in the whole gambling world knows that you guys put one over on my ass to the tune of forty mil.” Bagger looked away and drew a deep, calming breath, apparently trying hard to keep from dismembering the young man with his bare hands, at least for a few more minutes.

  “But first, let’s get one important thing squared away. I want you to ask me how I found you. I want you to know how smart I am and how fucking dumb you are. So ask me, Tony, how did I track you down, with all the places you could’ve gone in the whole freaking world after ripping me off?” Bagger grabbed ahold of Tony’s slender neck and jerked him close. “Ask me, you little prick.” A vein throbbed in Bagger’s temple.

  Tony said haltingly, “How did you find me, Mr. Bagger?”

  Bagger slammed a forearm into Tony’s shallow chest, knocking him back against the bed. Then the casino chief stood and paced. “I’m glad you asked me that. See, the bitch who ran the scam, she had you watching me that first night to make it look like I was under surveillance. Now, the only way to look into my office is to get a room on the twenty-third floor of the hotel across from my casino. So I go over there and make some inquiries about who occupied any rooms on that floor on that day that looked out onto my place. And I checked out every single person on that list.”

  He stopped pacing and grinned at Tony. “Until I found you. You were smart not to use your own name at the hotel, but you made a slip that the bitch and her sidekick didn’t. That’s why I couldn’t track them down, ’cause they left nothing behind.” Bagger wagged a finger at him. “But you, you went and got a massage, because I checked on that. And you hit on the chick that gave you the rubdown, looking for a little action on the side. But you didn’t last too long with the lady and then ran into the bathroom to puke your guts out. While you were in there the bitch rolled your wallet and took some cash to add to the lousy C-note you gave her for popping early. And that’s where she saw the driver’s license with your real name. It was pretty dumb to keep it in there, Tony.

  “So while you thought the BJ only cost you a hundred bucks, you can see the price tag really turned out to be a whole lot more. And the lowlife told me everything I needed to know for a lousy grand. Don’t ever trust the bitches, Tony, they’ll screw you every time, and don’t I know it.”

  He sat back down next to Tony, who was now quietly sobbing. “You got a rep, young man. Gadget boy, do anything with a computer. Like putting spy shit on my bank wiring system and stealing forty million of my money. I mean, that’s talent. So anyway, I greased a lot of palms, checked your friends, your family, traced some calls you made back home, killed a few uncooperative people, and now I find myself sitting here with you on the sunny coast of Spain or fucking Portugal or wherever the hell we are.” He slapped Tony’s bare leg.

  “Okay, good, now I got that off my chest, we can move on.” He motioned to one of his men, who pulled a compact pistol out of his jacket holster, spun a suppressor on the muzzle, chambered a round and handed it to Bagger.

  “No, please, no,” Tony whimpered before Bagger silenced him by jamming the pistol in the young man’s mouth, breaking his two front teeth in the process.

  Bagger wedged a forearm against Tony’s windpipe, holding him down on the bed and sliding his finger near the trigger.

  “Okay, Tony boy, here’s the drill. You get one chance at this. One chance,” he repeated slowly. “And it’s only because I feel generous. Why, I don’t know. Maybe I’m mellowing in my old age.” He paused, licked his lips and said, “The bitch. I want her name and everything else you know about her. You tell me that, you get to live.” He looked around the cavernous bedroom. “Not here, not on my dime. But you get to live. You don’t tell me, well?” Bagger abruptly slid the pistol out of Tony’s mouth, its muzzle covered in his blood and bits of teeth. “Oh, you thought I was just going to shoot you?” Bagger laughed. “No, no, that’s not how this works. That’s way too fast.” He gave the gun to another man and held out his hand. Mike slapped a serrated knife into his palm.

  “We do this stuff slow, and we have lots of practice.” Bagger held out his other hand, and another of his men slipped a plastic glove on it.

  Bagger continued, “You didn’t used to have to do this glove stuff except because of fingerprints. But now what with all the diseases and crap everywhere, you can’t take chances. I mean like the bonita bitch, how do you know she wasn’t bonking every muchacho in town before you started banging her ripe ass? I hope you were at least wearing a rubber.”

  Bagger reached his gloved hand down, grabbed Tony’s crotch and pulled hard.

  Tony screamed in agony, but the other men held him down. Bagger studied Tony’s private parts and said, “Frankly, I don’t understand what bonita saw in you.” He raised the knife up. “Okay, the bitch’s name, where my money is and everything else. Then you get to live. Otherwise, I start with your balls, and then it gets really painful after that. What’s it gonna be, Tony? You got five seconds. And once I start cutting, I don’t stop for nothing.”

  Tony made a sound.

  “What was that? I didn’t quite get it.”

  “A-Ann—”

  “Speak the hell up, you little asshole, my hearing’s not that great.”

  “Annabelle!” he screamed.

  “Annabelle? Annabelle who?” Bagger yelled so hard, spit flew out of his mouth.

  “Annabelle . . . Conroy. Paddy Conroy’s daughter.”

  Bagger slowly lowered the knife and let go of Tony’s privates. He handed the blade to one of his men and stripped off the glove. Jerry Bagger stood and walked over to the window and looked out. His gaze didn’t even linger for a second on the dead Carmela, who’d landed flush on an ornate stone lio
n positioned next to the back door. Instead, he stared out at the ocean.

  Annabelle Conroy? He’d never even known Paddy had a kid. Yet now it started to make sense. Paddy Conroy’s little girl had been in his casino, in his office, played him like a fool and screwed him out of far more than her old man ever had.

  Okay, Annabelle, I did your mama, now it’s your turn.

  He cracked his knuckles, turned back around and looked at bloody-mouthed Tony lying there on the bed weeping, a hand over his privates.

  “What else?” he said. “Everything. And you get to keep breathing.”

  And Tony told him, finishing up with Annabelle’s instructions on keeping a low profile and not spending his money all in one place.

  Bagger said, “Well, you should’ve listened to the woman.” He snapped his fingers. “Okay, guys, get to it. We don’t have all day.”

  One of the men opened a black case he’d brought with him. Inside were four baseball bats. He handed three to the other men and kept one for himself.

  As they raised the bats overhead, Tony shrieked. “But you said if I told you, you’d let me live. You said so.”

  Bagger shrugged. “That’s right. And after the boys finish with you, you’ll still be alive. Barely. Jerry Bagger is a man of his word.”

  As he walked out, he heard the first blow land, breaking Tony’s right knee. Bagger started whistling, closed the door to muffle the screams and went downstairs for a cup of coffee.

  CHAPTER 61

  THE NEXT MORNING THE LI-brary was in an uproar. Norman Janklow’s murder, so soon after DeHaven’s death, had sent shock waves the length and breadth of the Jefferson Building. When Caleb arrived for work, the police and FBI were already interrogating everyone. Caleb did his best to answer the questions with short answers. It didn’t help that the same two homicide detectives who’d given him back the keys to DeHaven’s house were also there. He sensed that they were keeping a very close eye on him. Had someone spotted him at Jewell’s house? Had they found his prints there? And Reuben had been released in time to commit the murder. Did they suspect him as well? There was no way to tell.

  Next his thoughts turned to the Beadle that Annabelle had taken. He had brought it with him today. It had been relatively easy, though Caleb was still a nervous wreck. The guards didn’t check bags going in, only coming out, and only visitors had their bags run through the X-ray machine. Still, the presence of the police only added to his tension. He breathed a sigh of relief after he’d safely run the gauntlet of authority and put the book away in his desk.

  When a conservator showed up with some repaired books to be returned to the vault, Caleb volunteered to do it. This would give him the perfect opportunity to reshelve the Beadle. He put the dime novel in the stack with the others and went into the vault. He put away the repaired tomes and then headed to the section where the Beadles were kept. However, when he started to slide the book onto the shelf, he noticed that the tape Annabelle had used to secure it to her thigh had torn a corner of the cover when she pulled it off.

  “Great, you’d have thought she could have been a little more careful, considering she stole the damn book in the first place,” he muttered to himself. He’d have to take the Beadle to conservation. He left the vault, filled out the necessary paperwork and had the conservation request inputted on the computer system. Then he walked through the tunnels to the Madison Building, barely glancing at the room where the gas cylinder that had killed Jonathan DeHaven once lurked. Reaching the conservation department, he presented the book to Rachel Jeffries, a woman who did very thorough work and performed it promptly.

  After chatting briefly with her about the latest awful news, Caleb returned to the reading room and sat at his desk. He looked around the space, so beautiful, so perfect for contemplation, so very empty right now after the deaths of two men associated with it.

  He jerked when the door opened and Kevin Philips came in, looking gaunt and stricken. The two men spoke for a few minutes. Philips told Caleb he was thinking of resigning. “It’s too much for my nerves,” he explained. “I’ve lost ten pounds since Jonathan died. And with his neighbor being murdered and now with Janklow’s death, the police don’t think Jonathan’s death was innocent.”

  “Well, they could be right.”

  “What do you think is going on, Caleb? I mean, this is a library. This stuff isn’t supposed to happen to us.”

  “I wish I could tell you, Kevin.”

  Later Caleb spoke with Milton, who’d been keeping his eyes and ears glued to the media outlets. He reported that there was much speculation about Janklow’s death, but no official cause had been reported. Jewell English’s home had been rented by her two years earlier. The only connection between the woman and the dead man was their regular visits to the reading room. English was now missing. Inquiries into her background had come to a dead end. She apparently wasn’t who she appeared to be. Perhaps Janklow wasn’t either.

  Big surprise there, Caleb thought as he hung up with Milton. Every time the door to the reading room opened, Caleb would tense. The place, so long a haven of peace and genteelness, was now like a recurrent nightmare. He just wanted to get out of its suffocating depths. Suffocating! God, that was an unfortunate choice of words. Yet he stayed because it was his job, and while he was often weak and impulsive in other aspects of his life, he was serious about his work. There were, not surprisingly, no patrons in the reading room today. At least this would give Caleb time to catch up on some tasks. However, that was not to be. Suddenly realizing that he was famished, Caleb decided to run out and get a sandwich.

  “Mr. Foxworth?” Caleb said as the tall, good-looking man approached him out on the street in front of the Jefferson Building.

  Seagraves nodded and smiled. “Please—Bill, remember? I was coming by to see you today.” Actually, Seagraves had been waiting for Caleb to come outside.

  “I’m just going to get a sandwich. I’m sure someone else can help you find a book in the reading room.”

  “Well, I was actually wondering if you’d like to see my books.”

  “What?”

  “My collection. It’s in my office. It’s only a few blocks from here. I’m a lobbyist, specializing in the oil industry. It pays to be close to Capitol Hill in my business.”

  “I’m sure it does.”

  “Do you think you could spare a few minutes? I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  “All right. Mind if I get a sandwich on the way? I haven’t had lunch.”

  “Not at all. I also wanted to tell you that I have on a five-day inspection period works by Ann Radcliffe and Henry Fielding.”

  “Excellent. Which books?”

  “Radcliffe’s The Romance of the Forest and Fielding’s The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews.”

  “Very good choices, Bill. Radcliffe was a genius at Gothic mystery. People think horror writers today are on the edge? They should try reading Radcliffe. Her stuff will still scare the pants off you. Joseph Andrews is a fine parody of Richardson’s Pamela. Fielding’s ironic in that he was a true poet at heart whose greatest fame was as a novelist and playwright. It’s said that his most popular play, Tom Thumb, made Jonathan Swift laugh for only the second time in his life.” Caleb chuckled. “I’m not sure what the first was, though I have a few theories.”

  “Fascinating,” Seagraves said as they walked down the street. “The thing is the dealer in Philly where I got the books says that they’re first editions, and his letter makes the usual claims about typical points and other indicia, but I really need an expert opinion. These books aren’t cheap.”

  “I would imagine not. Well, I’ll take a look at them, and if I can’t tell, which, without blowing my own horn too loudly, is doubtful, I can certainly put you in touch with someone who can.”

  “Mr. Shaw, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”

  “Please, call me Caleb.”

  Caleb grabbed a sandwich at a deli on Independence Avenue a bloc
k down from the Madison Building and then followed Seagraves to his office building.

  It was located in a brownstone, Seagraves said, but they’d have to enter from the alley. “They’re doing repairs on the lobby, and it’s a mess. But there’s an elevator we can ride from the basement right to my office.”

  As they walked down the alley, Seagraves kept a running conversation going about old books and his hopes of building an adequate collection.

  “It takes time,” Caleb said. “I have a part ownership interest in a rare book shop in Old Town Alexandria. You should drop by sometime.”

  “I’ll certainly do that.”

  Seagraves stopped at a door in the alley, unlocked it and ushered Caleb inside.

  He closed the door behind them. “The elevator’s just around the corner.”

  “Fine. I think—”

  Caleb didn’t finish what he was thinking as he slumped to the floor unconscious. Seagraves stood over him, holding the blackjack he’d earlier hidden in a crevice of the interior wall. He hadn’t lied. The brownstone’s lobby was being renovated—the entire building was, in fact—and had been recently shut down so construction work could begin in a week.

  Seagraves tied and gagged Caleb and then placed him in a box that sat open against one wall after taking off a ring from Caleb’s right middle finger. He nailed the lid of the box shut and made a call. Five minutes later a van pulled into the alley. With the driver’s help Seagraves lifted the box into the van. The men climbed in and the van pulled off.

  CHAPTER 62

  ANNABELLE HAD PICKED STONE up before the crack of dawn, and they’d driven out to Trent’s home and settled themselves down where they could see his driveway. They’d left Annabelle’s rental car for Reuben to use and taken his battered pickup truck for the surveillance. It fit in a lot better in horse country than her Chrysler Le Baron had the night before. Because she and Stone had been kidnapped, that car was still parked on a dirt road about five hundred yards from where they were. Annabelle had rented another car the previous night at Dulles Airport.

  Stone was looking through a pair of binoculars. It was dark, chilly and damp, and with the truck’s engine off, the interior quickly became very cold. Annabelle snuggled down in her coat. Stone seemed oblivious to the elements. They had only seen one other car pass by, its headlights cutting through the fog that hovered a few feet above the ground. Stone and Annabelle had ducked down in the truck’s cab until it had gone by. The sleepy driver was on his cell phone, gulping coffee and reading snatches of a newspaper draped across the steering wheel.

  An hour later, just as dawn was breaking, Stone tensed. “Okay,